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17 July 21
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It’s outrageous that the president responsible for the disastrous war in Iraq that helped turned the one in Afghanistan into a quagmire is objecting to Biden’s troop withdrawal.
eorge W. Bush, who chose to remain quiet as a churchmouse in the face of almost all of Donald Trump’s crimes and abuses as president, has chosen this moment to offer a critique of a decision of Joe Biden’s.
George W. Bush, who is responsible for the biggest foreign policy catastrophe in U.S. history with the disastrous invasion of Iraq, has chosen this moment to give Joe Biden foreign policy advice.
George W. Bush, who has been at times complicit and at times silent in the face of his own political party’s serial assaults on the rights and dignity of women in America, has chosen this moment to lament what Joe Biden’s decision to at long last pull our troops out of Afghanistan to express his concern for the rights of the women of that country.
George W. Bush, who has been at times complicit and at times silent in the face of his own political party’s serial assaults on the rights and dignity of women in America, has chosen this moment to lament what Joe Biden’s decision to at long last pull our troops out of Afghanistan to express his concern for the rights of the women of that country.
Yes, the George W. Bush who launched what has become the longest war in American history, a trillion-dollar plus fiasco that cost the lives of over 2300 American military personnel and of between 35,000 and 40,000 civilians in Afghanistan, has violated his self-imposed policy of not commenting on the policies of his Oval Office successors to condemn Biden’s decision to finally end that war.
He told a German broadcaster, “I think the consequences are going to be unbelievably bad.” He added, “Afghan women and girls are going to suffer unspeakable harm. This is a mistake. They’re just going to be left behind to be slaughtered by these very brutal people and it breaks my heart.”
Never mind, that during the 20 years of America’s troop presence in Afghanistan, the U.S. was unable to remake the political and cultural reality of that country enough to defang the extremists who are likely to attack those women and girls, to strengthen the central government and military sufficiently to provide on-going, long term security for those women and girls, to knit together a global coalition and diplomatic mechanisms that are tough or effective enough to provide the protection those women and girls deserve. Two decades of war and loss and deployed U.S. and coalition troops were not enough to send a message to the Taliban that they would pay a high cost for again seeking to translate their twisted, thousand-year-old world view into a hellish reality for the women and girls of Afghanistan.
Bush, who did not criticize the drawdowns in Afghanistan by Obama and then Trump, apparently felt compelled to attack Biden’s plan to pull out the last U.S. troops from that country. Never mind that is precisely what Trump also said he would do. Never mind that Obama said it was his ultimate goal, as well.
Imagine the nerve of Bush offering this criticism. He launched this war in the wake of the September 11 attacks, much as any U.S. president would have done. He received Congressional authorization to do so to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against the groups that “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11 attacks. He then undermined that effort by diverting the bulk of U.S. military attention to Iraq. He did that based on what we now know to be lies peddled by a faction within his administration. That war diverted almost $2 trillion in US resources to laying waste to a country we had no business fighting. Nearly 4,500 Americans died there, and 32,000 more were wounded. While exact numbers are disputed. hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died in our war that achieved no significant benefit for the United States. It destabilized the region while irreparably damaging America’s standing in the world and delaying America’s ability to ultimately hunt down the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden.
That did not occur until 2011, over two years after Bush left office. During the ten years since, the authorization to use force in Afghanistan was extended, the exact terms specifying its targets even classified, but clearly among those targets were the Taliban, who aided and gave sanctuary to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Another decade of fighting not only did not eliminate the Taliban threat, it failed to create an adequate counterweight to their enduring presence and today it is clear that they are reclaiming control over much of Afghanistan even as America leaves.
What would Bush propose? If he is like many in the chorus of frustrated tough guys and chicken hawks on the right who are criticizing Biden’s decision, perhaps he thinks we should have a permanent military presence in Afghanistan. If so, then he, like them, has learned none of the lessons of the past two decades. They seem to think more lives and more treasure will produce what it has not produced in the past 20 years—a strong government in Kabul, a strong military, respect for the rule of law and 21st Century values on the part of the Taliban. The speed of the Taliban’s reassertion of control should be seen as a sign of the complete futility of U.S. efforts in that country, echoing, as so many have pointed out since we arrived, the similarly unsatisfying experiences of past invaders from Alexander the Great to the Soviet Union.
Should the United States seek to protect the women and girls of Afghanistan? Of course. Indeed, we have a special responsibility given the damage we have done to the country. But, given how poorly military intervention has worked at achieving the society-stabilizing goals that would ensure the security of all the citizens of Afghanistan, regardless of sex, it should be clear the measures we should use must take another form. This should be a major project of the international community, one that comes with aid for countries who respect the rights of women, provide their education and opportunities, enable them to have a full political voice—and that provides severe penalties for all countries who do not.
That should serve as a reminder that another area in which we have not heard Bush speak out during his ex-presidency of charmingly bad art and warm photo shoots with Michelle Obama is guaranteeing the rights of women in all countries...including, first and foremost, right here in the United States.
In fact, that especially includes women in Bush’s home state of Texas, where the ex-president has said nothing about a new law that is worthy of the Taliban. It harnesses the power of religious zealots who do not believe women have the right to control their own bodies to challenge any effort by clinics or doctors or anyone helping a woman to get an abortion in that state. Neighbors can sue neighbors for choices that are guaranteed to them by the laws of the United States, that have been reaffirmed (for now) by the Supreme Court led by Bush-appointed Chief Justice John Roberts.
Has Bush spoken out against the efforts of his party to get the Supreme Court to overturn or limit those rights? No. Did he speak out when his party nominated a man to be president who has been accused by two dozen women of rape and sexual abuse? No. Has he spoken out against the efforts by his party to limit the voting rights of Americans, targeting primarily the voting power of women of color? Of course not.
Bush appointed justices and judges who opposed reproductive rights for women. He blocked aid to international organizations that provided family planning services. He blocked efforts to recruit more women into the intelligence community. And he has remained silent as the American Taliban in his party have sought to do worse.
Bush has permanently disqualified himself from commenting on U.S. foreign policy. He owns the Afghanistan fiasco and should be silent about well-intentioned efforts with bi-partisan support to bring it to a close. (Polls show overwhelming support for the pullout—between 58 percent support in an Economist poll to 77 percent in a CBS News poll.) He offers no better choices because, like other critics, he has none. And if he is going to stand up for the rights of women in the face of systematic efforts by religious extremists to crush them, then there is plenty of work he is going to have to do at home before he has any credibility to comment about what is going on elsewhere in the world.
George, unless you are going to stand up for American women and against errors you yourself made, it would be better for us all if you go back to your painting.
Donald Trump. (photo: Andrew Harrer/Getty Images)
cooperating witness in the Manhattan district attorney's investigation into the Trump Organization told prosecutors that Donald Trump once personally offered to pay for perks in place of a taxable income, The Daily Beast reported on Friday, citing sources who heard the conversation.
The revelation could bolster any charges that prosecutors could bring against Trump as part of a case that his company and its longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, have been indicted in.
Manhattan prosecutors are investigating whether Trump Organization executives illegally took benefits without paying taxes on them and whether the company engaged in tax and financial fraud.
Earlier in July, prosecutors announced a 15-count indictment accusing Weisselberg and the company of facilitating a scheme where he would accept corporate gifts like apartments and tuition payments in lieu of higher salaries, thereby avoiding paying a chunk of taxes for both the company and its employees.
Two unnamed sources told The Daily Beast that they'd heard a June 25 interview between investigators and the witness, Jennifer Weisselberg, Allen Weisselberg's former daughter-in-law, in which she said Trump had personally guaranteed to pay school costs, including tuition for her children, rather than give a raise.
The outlet did not say how the sources were connected to the investigation. Jennifer Weisselberg's lawyer did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Charging documents that prosecutors filed earlier this month said Trump had personally signed tuition checks for Allen Weisselberg's family members. The 25-page indictment refers to the former president several times.
'Don't worry, I've got it covered'
Jennifer Weisselberg is said to have told prosecutors that Trump said he would pay for her and Barry Weisselberg's children's education instead of giving Barry a raise, the Daily Beast report said.
In previous interviews with Insider, Jennifer Weisselberg said that Allen Weisselberg would facilitate the payments and that the Trump Organization would give perks in lieu of raises as a way to control employees' personal lives.
According to The Daily Beast's sources, the agreement Jennifer Weisselberg recalled was made in January 2012 during a meeting at Trump Tower with her, Trump, Barry Weisselberg, and Allen Weisselberg. Barry Weisselberg, who was her husband at the time, is also a Trump Organization employee.
Jennifer Weisselberg told prosecutors that at one point in the meeting, Trump turned to her and said, "Don't worry, I've got it covered," the sources told The Daily Beast.
Investigators also asked Jennifer Weisselberg, who is in the middle of litigation stemming from her 2018 divorce from Barry Weisselberg, whether Trump was personally involved in the alleged scheme, and she said he was, sources told The Daily Beast.
The Manhattan DA investigation is ongoing
The Manhattan district attorney charged the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg earlier this month with 15 felony counts of scheme to defraud, conspiracy, grand larceny, tax fraud, and falsifying business records.
The indictment included evidence indicating that Trump was personally involved in covering his employees' children's tuition payments. From 2012 to 2017, the indictment said, "Trump Corporation personnel, including Weisselberg, arranged for tuition expenses for Weisselberg's family members to be paid by personal checks drawn on the account of and signed by Donald J. Trump, and later drawn on the account of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust dated April 7, 2017."
Prosecutors said Weisselberg omitted the tuition payments from his personal tax returns even though he knew the payments "represented taxable income and were treated as compensation by the Trump Corporation in internal records."
Weisselberg and the Trump Organization pleaded not guilty to the charges against them. Trump slammed the investigation as a "witch hunt."
This month's indictment represents the first charges to come out of the Manhattan DA's three-year investigation into Trump's business dealings. But prosecutors have said the inquiry is ongoing, and legal experts told Insider that the charges may just be the tip of the iceberg where Trump is concerned.
"It's not going to be lost on Trump's lawyers that the government showed with this indictment how quickly they were able to put together what looks like a very solid case, considering how short a time they've had Trump and his company's records," said Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who was on the team that convicted the Gambino crime boss John Gotti.
The allegation that Trump personally signed the tuition checks is unlikely to shift Trump's personal exposure to the investigation, according to Randy Zelin, a former New York state prosecutor. Trump has already given speeches in which he has not challenged the underlying facts of the prosecutors' allegations.
Zelin said that if the case were to go to trial, Trump would likely admit to paying for employees' tuition but say he expected other people to make sure the tax payments were in order.
"It could be something as simple as 'Yes, of course, I agreed to have tuition covered as long as it's going to be done legitimately, and that's why I have accountants and CFOs and lawyers and, and professionals,'" Zelin, now a defense attorney at Wilk Auslander LLP, told Insider.
Investigators could also bring charges against other Trump Organization employees, many of whom prosecutors said received the same type of untaxed benefits that Weisselberg did.
"As prosecutors go through this evidence and threaten other company executives, they may not all be guys in their 70s" like Allen Weisselberg, Cotter said. "They might be in the prime of their life and they're going to think about the fact that they could go to jail for five, six, seven years if they get the wrong judge. Those are the guys that may have more motivation to cooperate."
Alan Futerfas, the Trump Organization's lawyer, did not provide a comment to The Daily Beast. Liz Harrington, Trump's spokesperson, did not immediately reply to Insider's request for comment.
Activists rallying to defend DACA in Washington, D.C. (photo: Andrew Stefan/RSN)
In a 77-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen found that DACA is unlawful and that the Department of Homeland Security can no longer approve new applicants into the program, which has granted work permits and protection from deportation to more than 600,000 young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. He also ruled that DHS could continue to process DACA renewals for now as the issue continues to move through the courts.
The court order does not “require DHS or the Department of Justice to take any immigration, deportation, or criminal action against any DACA recipient, applicant, or any other individual that it would not otherwise take,” Hanen wrote in the ruling.
In a statement released Saturday, President Joe Biden called the ruling "deeply disappointing" and said the Department of Justice would appeal the decision.
It is the latest blow to the program, which has been caught in legal limbo since former President Barack Obama introduced it in 2012.
Immigrant advocates, attorneys and DACA recipients had been bracing for Hanen to rule against DACA given the Trump administration’s handling of the case and the judge’s track record on immigration. They had been waiting on a ruling since a hearing took place in late December.
Advocates, for months, have said a ruling against DACA could force Congress to move more quickly on securing a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. If DACA is ultimately overturned for current recipients, they will be stripped of their protection from deportation and work permits.
Democrats are planning to include immigration measures — such as a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, recipients of Temporary Protected Status and essential workers, like farmworkers — in the forthcoming $3.5 trillion spending bill. Still, it is unclear if the measures will survive the Senate’s budget rules that would allow it to be part of the final package.
On Friday afternoon, immigrant advocacy groups, Democrats, DACA recipients and backers of the program were quick to put out statements slamming the ruling and calling on Congress to ensure a pathway to citizenship is in the reconciliation package.
"Not a surprise, just a painful reminder that we need to stop relying on temporary immigration fixes," Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), one of the key figures pushing for immigration reform on Capitol Hill, posted on Twitter. "Congress must seize the moment and any and all opportunities to finally provide a pathway to legalization for millions of undocumented immigrants."
Despite the ruling, DACA remains popular, with widespread support among both Republicans and Democrats across the country.
"We don’t need to hear Republican talking points — the solution is clear, and all leaders should have the will and commitment to leave politics aside and advance this long-held promise, carrying the weight of public support and the urgency of the moment," said Sergio Gonzales, executive director of the Immigration Hub.
The Biden administration is expected to appeal Hanen’s decision to the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
In 2015, Hanen — an appointee of President George W. Bush— blocked Obama’s move to expand the DACA program to cover millions more immigrants by increasing eligibility and creating a similar quasi-legal status for family members of U.S. citizens and legal residents. However, the red states that brought suit over the DACA expansion did not mount a serious challenge to the original program until last year.
Texas and eight other states, in their lawsuit, asked the court to end DACA, arguing that it was unconstitutional and has forced states to bear extra costs from providing DACA recipients with services like education. But DACA supporters have long pointed to research documenting the program's benefits for both young immigrants and the country. The Center for American Progress, for example, estimates that ending DACA would mean a loss of billions of dollars in GDP for the states suing to overturn it.
In the decision Friday, Hanen adopted one of the same conclusions he came to in the first decision: that the programs should have been subjected to formal notice-and-comment under the Administrative Procedure Act. In the new ruling, the judge also held that the substance of the original DACA program was illegal because it exceeded powers Congress granted to executive branch agencies.
The Obama administration and supporters of the programs argued that they were similar to earlier actions by a series of administrations to temporarily accommodate certain groups of immigrants because of unrest abroad or for other reasons. But Hanen said those efforts were different because they provided relief to immigrants from specific countries or amounted to stopgap measures adopted in anticipation of congressional action.
“Given the nine-year history of failed legislation in Congress, it is an inescapable conclusion that DACA is not interstitial to any congressional action,” Hanen wrote. “Although Congress may someday enact such a DREAM Act, until it does, its continued failure to pass bills coextensive with the DACA population evinces a rejection of this policy.”
The ruling Friday is also in tension with a decision last December from a federal judge in Brooklyn, Nicholas Garaufis, who ordered the government to begin processing new applications for DACA again and to resume granting permissions for DACA applicants to take trips out of the country without losing their status. In the new decision, Hanen insisted that while he was prohibiting new grants of DACA, he was not interfering with the other judge’s order for the Department of Homeland Security to accept such applications.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, talks with reporters as he makes his way to the Senate floor for a vote in Washington, D.C., July 13, 2021. (photo: Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
The House has spent years hashing out legislation, but the Senate Finance Committee chair is vowing to start fresh.
Wyden on Wednesday told reporters he believed he had House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s blessing for the rewrite of H.R. 3, House Democrats’ signature bill to allow Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies and use the savings to expand Medicare to cover hearing, vision, and dental insurance. On June 22, Wyden released a set of “principles” to guide negotiations over the Senate’s version of the legislation.
Committee chairs typically release sets of principles ahead of negotiations, which can often go on for several months or years. Wyden has just a matter of weeks as Democrats hope to have the details of the $3.5 trillion package finalized by August or September. “The last couple of weeks have, in my view, been very positive,” Wyden told The Intercept. “For example, after I laid out principles, I talked to a number of moderate senators, they really liked the provisions that promote breakthroughs and innovations in biotechs. They volunteered — a couple of them said, we read the principles, we went right to that section. And then, and I didn’t know about it ahead of time, the speaker apparently at a presser a couple of days ago, said, ‘I like the principles Senator Wyden laid out.’ So what that’s been is an indication that now as we go to writing the details of the program — and we will write the details, it is the job of the Senate Finance Committee — we’re starting with some pretty good signals.”
House Democrats, meanwhile, are concerned not just at the prospect of a full rewrite, but also worried Wyden will narrow what the House has already agreed to, allowing pharmaceutical industry lobbyists another opportunity to water down H.R. 3. Asked about those concerns by The Intercept, he demurred. “I’m not going to get into the details,” he said. “I will tell you that the speaker’s comments last week were very welcomed, particularly by me, because it was an indication that the coalition that I’m spending a lot of time to build — shuttling back and forth between the progressives and the moderates — has some life.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., a member of the Senate Finance Committee, hasn’t yet spoken to Wyden about his intentions for the bill, but he said, “I’m sure there will be elements of the House version but I don’t know that it will be exclusively a mirror of it.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who is chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said she hasn’t spoken yet with Wyden about allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, but she’s “looking forward to hearing more from him about what he has to say.”
“Look, I think we need to have Medicare negotiate drug prices. I think we have to bring drug prices down, and I think it needs to be in this package,” Jayapal said, referring to Senate Democrats’ $3.5 trillion deal.
H.R. 3 was sponsored by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Frank Pallone, D-N.J. Asked about his reaction to Wyden’s plans, Pallone said: “Empowering the federal government to negotiate prescription drug prices would help save Americans’ hard-earned money while also producing federal cost-savings that we could use to help pay for critical priorities in the upcoming reconciliation package. It’s time for Congress to come together to address high prescription drug prices.”
But Big Pharma is spending furiously to fight H.R. 3, and they even teamed up with some of the building trades unions to run an ad thanking Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., for sticking with them.
The ad, funded by the Pharmaceutical Industry Labor-Management Association, tries to make the case that revenue from higher drug costs allow companies to invest in more research and construction, creating union jobs. Meanwhile, a report this month from the House Oversight and Reform Committee found the 14 leading drug companies spent $577 billion on stock buybacks and dividends between 2016 and 2020: $56 million more than what they spent on research in that timeframe. At that rate, they’re slated to spend $1.15 trillion on buybacks and dividends between 2020 and 2029.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, sought to broaden an earlier version of H.R. 3 while the House Ways and Means Committee was marking up the bill in 2019. He introduced amendments to increase the number of drugs Medicare could negotiate and allow the uninsured to use the resulting lower prices, but only a few Democrats supported the provisions, and they ultimately were voted down by a majority of the committee members, including Chair Richard Neal, D-Mass.
One of the three other Democrats who supported giving access to the uninsured was Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va. Asked for a comment on Wyden’s plans to restart the process, Beyer spokesperson Aaron Fritschner said: “[We] don’t know the details on the Wyden approach and we strongly support H.R. 3, but the most important thing is the results, and if what Senator Wyden does can achieve broad decreases in the cost of prescription drugs Rep. Beyer will gladly support it.”
Democrats have long rallied around the idea of empowering the government to help lower drug prices — clinching to that goal rather than championing more transformative reform to the American health care system, like Medicare for All. After the 2016 elections, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee commissioned a survey that encouraged House Democrats to avoid discussing Medicare for All and instead focus on attacking Republicans trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act and, if necessary, decreasing the costs of prescription drugs.
After the late John McCain, former Republican senator from Arizona, helped save Obamacare in 2018, lowering drug prices became a top talking point that Democrats in the midterm election campaigned on. After taking control of the House, though, they were unable to negotiate a deal with President Donald Trump, and again ran on the issue two years later.
Tucker Carlson. (photo: AOL)
ox News host Tucker Carlson has the highest-rated show on cable, a devoted following on the right, and "may be the most powerful conservative in America," Charlotte Alter reports at Time. But he won't say if he has been vaccinated against COVID-19.
When Alter asked him about his vaccination status at the end of a "meandering phone conversation" in June, she writes in a Carlson profile published Thursday, he replied: "Because I'm a polite person, I'm not going to ask you any supervulgar personal questions like that." Alter told Carlson he was welcome to ask her whatever he wanted, she adds, and "he broke into a cackle, like a hyena let loose in Brooks Brothers. 'I mean, are you serious? What's your favorite sexual position and when did you last engage in it?'"
"For someone who talks a lot about the right to ask questions, Carlson never did give me a straight answer," Alter writes. "Carlson has mastered the Trumpian mathematics of outrage — the more outlandish his rhetoric, the more vehement the backlash, the more formidable he becomes" — but "instead of Trumpian boasting, Carlson insists he's just asking questions." And this eagerness to ask impolitic questions "has made him the top general in the war against Americans' sense of shared reality," she adds. This matters with vaccinations and COVID-19 behaviors more generally because "studies have suggested that Carlson has the ability to alter viewers' behavior" more than anybody else at Fox News, for better or worse. Read more about Carlson's influence and the wiles of "Tuckerism" at Time.
Women shout slogans during a demonstration against the Colombian government's proposed tax reform, in Bogota. (photo: Fernando Vergara/AP)
eginning earlier this summer, Colombia was rocked by weeks of unprecedented anti-government protests that left behind wreckage in many of Colombia’s cities, from Cali to the capital Bogotá, reminiscent of the bitter days of its civil war. But despite heavy police brutality, many Colombians felt hopeful that real change was within reach.
Today, Colombia’s cities have returned to a bizarre state of tranquility. Leaving a trail of damaged infrastructure, the protests were suspended in early June amid a surge in COVID-19 cases. But Colombians have pledged to restart the protests on July 20, when the new legislative period starts. Union leaders are already working on laws to present to Congress on that date.
The protests started as peaceful marches on April 28, 2021, in response to proposed tax reforms, which increased food and utility prices, as well as a hike in income tax. But a year into the pandemic that has pushed more than 3.5 million Colombians into poverty, that tax reform — which would have seen anyone with a monthly income of $656 or more affected — only fueled long-brewing anger.
After successfully turning back the tax bill, protests turned into a major uprising, with demands to fix the health care system, fight corruption, scrap university tuition fees, and more. When the Colombian militarized anti-riot police unit Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios (ESMAD) began cracking down on peaceful protesters with the use of tear gas, water cannons, and lethal weaponry, the protests spiraled into violence.
“Day after day, people from all corners of society came together to defend their rights,” Daniela Agudelo Pinta and Jonathan Grajales Delgado, youth activists from Buga, a town northwest of Cali, told me. “And for that, the state was attacking us. No matter how heavily armed your police are, we had to show that we won’t give in. Many people have simply nothing to lose anymore.”
As rising numbers of COVID-19 cases threatened to overburden the country’s fragile health system, protest organizers called to suspend demonstrations. Talks between dedicated strike committees and the Centro Democrático government achieved little to no progress. With a return to the protests set for July 20, Colombia, for now, is at a stalemate.
“The protests have not achieved the desired objective, the objective of real change,” said Diego Fernando Campo Valencia, founder of the NGO Fundación Proyectando Vidas. “Some first agreements were reached, but the national government is just handing out empty words. The government has no real interest in sticking to its promises. And as people realize that, it will be certain that the protests will return stronger and bigger on July 20.”
Meanwhile, the government continues to escape accountability for more than sixty civilian deaths that have been reported as a result of the protests. Human rights groups were quick to express alarm about the “excessive and disproportionate” use of force against protesters. Trained to fight paramilitary groups and the FARC, Amnesty International denounced the employment of “paramilitary strategies” against civilians. Smearing protesters as terrorists and vandals, the center-right government led by President Iván Duque defended the use of heavy police force.
While the death toll is disputed, the real number is widely believed to be much higher. More than four hundred people are reported missing to date. Women and underage girls repeatedly described sexual abuse by police officers.
More concerned to repair the damage done to its reputation, little hope is set on Duque’s Centro Democrático party for a lack of confidence in its ability to engage in a meaningful dialogue with protesters.
“Colombia’s biggest danger is that we forget. Our resistance to this system of inequality is a significant moment in our history. We need to affect a lasting change in our nation’s thinking,” Jonathan said. “The current sentiment needs to be sustained at least until the next election; this is where we must see the real change happening.”
If elections were tomorrow in Colombia, the outcome would likely mark the start of a new era of left-wing politics in the Latin American country that has been controlled by the center-right Centro Democrático party since former president Álvaro Uribe came to power in 2002.
Colombia, a long-standing US client state, is a keystone of US foreign policy toward Latin America. With more than $7 billion spent in aid since the ’70s, largely on supplying military training and equipment, the United States maintains strong interest in ensuring the Colombian president is a trusted ally.
In 2018, left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro lost his bid for president against Duque as the failures of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela helped shift votes away from Petro, after the Centro Democrático party stoked fears of Colombia becoming a second Venezuela. Duque’s government, strongly under control by predecessor Uribe, will attempt to replay those fears ahead of the 2022 election in a desperate cling to power.
“The Centro Democrático party is dividing Colombia by labeling protesters as part of a left radical movement,” said Diego, whose foundation is based in Cali. “They are building on people’s fears of violence and instability from the past, claiming that they are reemerging within these protests.”
President Duque is rallying the party’s traditional base of religious conservatives, rural landowners, and segments of the middle class concerned with crime. His message is that Centro Democrático is the only party that can maintain order and stability in a country with a violent past.
With nearly a year to go until the elections, whether ultimately the fear of instability and rising violence will prevail over anger about the government’s inaction and empty promises is too early to determine. But as President Duque realizes this is unlikely to turn his favorability rating in time for the elections, he may feel inclined to employ more radical anti-democratic measures against protesters. Some of his Cabinet members suggest that he should institute emergency measures giving him greater powers to restore order.
The international community should closely monitor events in Colombia. International solidarity will be needed to protect the rights of protesters.
And when the United Nations Security Council meeting that began this week discusses the situation in Colombia, leaders must put forward solutions that hold the Colombian police and state authorities accountable for the excessive use of force and resulting civilian abductions and deaths. In May, fifty US lawmakers called for a halt to weapons sales to the Colombian national police. This is a step in the right direction.
But more needs to be done. If unequal economic recoveries from the COVID-19 pandemic continue to push people into hardship across the developing world, the path for countries like Colombia will be rocky in the years to come. Downgraded by credit rating institutions, Colombia has lost its status as a reliable investment destination on a continent plagued by defaults. New tax reform is currently on the way to legislation.
With a government that has lost trust in its goodwill and competence to pull Colombia out of its current crises, the 2022 elections will be decisive.
“Colombia’s future is dependent on next year’s elections. We need a different congress with real people in power that work to bring our country forward,” said Diego. “If Centro Democrático continues to stay in power, Colombia will move backward. Whether Petro has the power to unite our country, I am doubtful. What Colombia needs is competence, people with the capacity to unite our country again.”
Firefighters from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's Placerville station battle the Sugar Fire, part of the Beckwourth Complex Fire, in Doyle, California, on July 9. (photo: Noah Berger/AP)
here are currently 70 wildfires burning more than one million acres across the U.S., according to the most recent figures from the National Interagency Fire Center.
While the bulk of the fires themselves are burning in the West, the smoke is projected to fill skies across the entire country, reaching as far east as New York.
"It's becoming an unfortunate new feature of New York City's summer weather -- wildfire smoke from the West Coast billowing east, adding to the haze here," NBC4 New York reported Friday.
Every state in the nation is expected to experience at least light, surface level smoke with the exception of the Four Corners states and the coastal Southeast, CNN reported. This is because the smoke is being lifted high enough into the atmosphere to reach the upper air masses, which push it east.
However, the states seeing the biggest impact from the smoke are still the states closer to the fires themselves. Minnesota and North Dakota are experiencing unhealthy air as fire smoke from Canada moved across the border Thursday into Friday. Air quality alerts are also in place in Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado, in addition to Minnesota.
The smoke is so dense it can be seen from space, as Space.com reported. The largest fire is the Bootleg Fire in Oregon, which has burned 241,497 acres and is only seven percent contained, according to the most recent update from InciWeb. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been monitoring the massive fire and its smoke with its GOES-17 satellite.
Wildfire smoke is a problem because it contributes to air pollution.
"The biggest health threat from smoke is from fine particles," the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency explained. "These microscopic particles can penetrate deep into your lungs. They can cause a range of health problems, from burning eyes and a runny nose to aggravated chronic heart and lung diseases. Exposure to particle pollution is even linked to premature death."
There is even evidence that wildfire smoke can help spread COVID-19. A study published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology Tuesday found a 17.7 percent increase in coronavirus cases in Reno, Nevada during the period when the city was most exposed to wildfire smoke from Aug. 16 to Oct. 10 of 2020.
That makes wildfire smoke another example of how the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis compound each other. Climate change makes fires in the West more frequent, bigger, faster and more severe, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
"Climate affects how long, how hot and how dry fire seasons are," Natasha Stavros, who studies wildfires as an applied science system engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explained. "As climate warms, we're seeing a long-term drying and warming of both air and vegetation."
2020 was a record-breaking season for fires in the West, but 2021 has already surpassed it, helped along by historic heat wave and drought conditions.
So far this year, there have been 6,271 more wildfires than in 2020 that have burned 511,427 more acres, CNN reported.
And states in the region don't expect relief any time soon.
"We are looking at a couple of months at least with wildfire smoke in areas," Idaho Department of Environmental Quality regional airshed coordinator Mike Toole told KTVB7. "Long term, I think we are going to see the smoke through the summer and into the fall."
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